Little hairs on Torch Skeleton

[PotatoPig]

One of my torches has a bunch of little hair like things that grow out from the skeleton, I’m assuming these are some sort of tube worm?

Weirdly, they are epidemic and spread on this one Torch (but don’t seem to bother it) but don’t appear anywhere else in the tank.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Coral-boring Spionid Worms:

If they’re inside the coral, then they’re Coral-boring Spionid Worms:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-boring-spionid-worms-an-ugly-bane-to-sps.929439/https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/coral-boring-spionid-worms-anybody-killed-them.974826/

Those are boring spionids - not a problem in small numbers, but a big problem if they start boring through corals and/or if the population gets out of hand.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/safe-interceptor-dose-coral-boring-spionid-worms.1016413/

 

[PotatoPig]

Coral-boring Spionid Worms:

Well, dang.

Weird the torch otherwise seems healthy and has been growing and splitting at a decent pace.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Well, dang.

Weird the torch otherwise seems healthy and has been growing and splitting at a decent pace.

Yeah, they seem to be more harmful to SPS - my concern with that many in the stem of your torch is that they're probably going to leave and settle elsewhere eventually and that the torch's stem is probably going to be pretty fragile/brittle at this point.

 

[Baronen]

Isn’t this a hammer?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Isn’t this a hammer?

Ah, haha, I didn't even give the coral a proper look - yeah, that's a hammer.

 

[PotatoPig]

Isn’t this a hammer?

Sorry, 100% brain fart due to posting this while shopping for torches.

No torches in tank at the moment.

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

My Duncan has the exact same thing on its stem (dead portions of the stem), what's weird is that they're stiff so maybe the tubes of very small spinoid worms if that's what they indeed are. I've not noticed any negative side effects in my case

 

[PotatoPig]

Update:

Treated with Duvet Duramectin Paste 1.87%, unflavored.

To treat I squeezed approx 1/2” of paste into a half full bottle of tank water, shock it up real good to get the meds broken up and floating around in the water (ivermectin isn’t water soluble) then mixed with a gallon of tank water.

Put the coral in there with a small power head to generate flow, with some barriers up to keep flow gentler around the frag as even a tiny power head generates a few hundred tiles turnover in a single gallon… added a heater to keep temperature stable.

Waited 60 mins, then rinsed it in three 1 gallon batches of tank water for about 10 mins at a time, then placed back in tank. Worms all seemed completely gone.

Going by the dozing instructions i apparently used enough to treat about 150lbs of horse, so probably a hefty dose in 1 gallon of water…

As of almost two weeks now there seem to be no worms and the hammer shows no signs of any adverse effects from the treatment. It didn’t seem to care at all - fully open the next day. No adverse reactions noticed in the tank either from any trace amounts brought back despite rinsing.

It’s slightly deflated in the pic as taken while lights were dimming in the evening so I could actually see the trunk.